Startled by Quinlan's shout, Xiyadie returned to her senses, looking around with confusion painted on her face. "Wait, how long was I...?"
"It's already morning," Quinlan answered immediately, pointing to the window that was blocking the sunshine. "It seems like we got so immersed that time flew by."
"Oh my god!"
Xiyadie tried to stand up, but fell forward immediately. She had been in the lotus position for too long; her legs got numb! Quinlan saw her have her ass up in the air but didn't bother helping her. After all, he too can't move as his legs fell asleep too!
"P-Pardon me, Young Lady Yinuo. I still have my chores to attend to." Xiyadie bowed before running out of the door.
She was limping a little, though, as her legs had yet to fully recover.
Quinlan waved at her fading figure, up until she left through the door and closed it. As soon as she did, he then heaved a deep sigh of relief.
"Fortunately, it looks like I managed to gather more Qi than Xiyadie did. With this, I wouldn't be subjected to the disgrace of having my student overtake me right at the start."
*Yawn!*
Since they were cultivating for the entire night, Quinlan didn't get a wink of sleep. He was so sleepy, he just wanted to lie down and snooze... But at that moment, a familiar voice echoed inside his head.
{Quinlan, how's your progress?}
"Oh, Yinuo?" Quinlan was honestly surprised, as it was still too early.
Their supposed communication time was about two more hours later, but she was already contacting him.
{I'm literally not able to do a damn thing here, so I thought I'd just continue teaching you about cultivation...}
Her voice trailed off at the end. A short bout of silence spread, making Quinlan tilt his head in puzzlement.
{You bastard... How did you reach the Qi Refinement 1st Stage already?}
This time, it was Yinuo's turn to be surprised. She knew that Quinlan shouldn't have a hard time cultivating since her body had extremely high specs. However, no matter what, reaching the first stage in one day was a little too fast!
{You didn't cheat or something, did you?}
"Wait, you can cheat cultivation?" Quinlan was more concerned about a possible shortcut than the suspicion Yinuo had about him. "How can I do it?"
They say there's a fine line between an idiot and a genius. Seeing his almost idiotic response, Yinuo realized that she was thinking a little too deeply about the situation. 'Right, him reaching the 1st Stage early should be a good thing... Damn, geniuses.'
{... With that, you've already cleared the task. Still, I suggest you continue cultivating daily and, if possible, reach the second or third stage before the time limit.}
Yinuo, with her experience in cultivation, could surely cultivate up to the second stage in 10 days. However, with Quinlan's cultivation speed, she can't help but wonder if he could reach the third stage before their time limit ends.
"Ah, right, before I forget." Quinlan cleared his throat, smiling smugly. "I managed to convince Xiyadie to cultivate. We both went all night cultivating. Amazing, right?"
He thought that Yinuo would praise or thank him, but instead, an angry voice bellowed inside his head.
{YOU BASTARD! DID YOU FORCE XIYADIE TO DUAL CULTIVATE WITH YOU?!}
'I knew it was too fast for normal cultivation!' Yinuo cursed, wishing she could strangle Quinlan's neck as soon as possible.
"What? Dual Cultivation? What's that? Another shortcut?" Quinlan was oblivious, of course.
He wasn't someone who had a background in cultivation, after all. He hadn't even read any of the famous Chinese cultivation novels before, so he was clueless about the specific terms.
"Come on, don't be stingy and tell me all these shortcuts already! If there's a faster way, then it's more efficient to use that instead!"
{...}
Quinlan was still acting ignorant, making Yinuo doubt if he knew about Dual Cultivation or not. Still, such a method can't be used by those around the Qi Refinement stage. Sighing deeply, she decided just to label it as him being a little too good at cultivating and nothing else.
'I should've peeked at him while I was bored,' she thought.
{Anyway, for now, continue to cultivate as you have. I'll be busy for a while, so don't contact me.}
Meng Yinuo actually felt threatened by Quinlan's talent! If he left him be, then she feared Quinlan would end up becoming more powerful than she was, which wasn't a good thing in her book.
"We may be cooperating, but we're not allies yet. I need to prepare in case he decides to stab me in the back."
*VWOOOM!*
At that instant, Yinuo disregarded the possible damage to Quinlan's body and started to meditate. Qi, scarce as they may be, started to flock around the medical pod, causing the viscous liquid inside it to gurgle and bubble up.
Yinuo started to soak up the Qi like there was no tomorrow, gathering everything in her lower Dantian without rest. At that moment, the computers in the room started to beep wildly. Warning signals flared, and emergency scripts started running on their own.
The doctor and nurses, who were busy doing something else outside of the room, started to flock inside and stare in wonder. "What the hell is going on?!"
The figures that were running on Yinuo's vital monitor were supposedly impossible to achieve for a normal human... Alive, that is.
Her heart rate jumped, reaching over 600 beats per minute! Furthermore, her blood pressure dropped like a rock, reaching a shocking 40/25. The safety mechanisms kicked in automatically, supplying specific doses of medicine into the pod. Those medicines, after reacting with the patient's body, caused more Qi to gather like a magnet pulling in iron sand.
However, the readings didn't get better, even after the introduction of medicine, causing the doctor to panic.
"Oh no, we're losing him!"
That was the only conclusion they could reach, seeing how irrational her current vitals were. In a split-second decision, the doctor decided to increase the curing rate of the pod. Although it could end up damaging "Quinlan's" cells permanently, it should still be better than actually dying.
The color of the viscous liquid started to become darker and denser. Slowly, Meng Yinuo's figure vanished from view, obscured by the medicinal fluid inside the pod. The doctor watched her readings, seeing that it was slowly regaining normalcy.
With shaking hands, they watched the values, waiting for them to return within an acceptable range. As soon as it did, they then hit the emergency shutoff, quickly draining the fluid out and ejecting Yinuo from inside it.
"Quick, get a stretcher! We'll take him to the ER immediately!"
As everyone was moving in panic, nobody noticed her waking up. Her bluish-white eyes shone in the dark room until a short while later, when it caused one of the nurses to freeze in shock.